NEW DELHI: Giving a fillip to Indian rocketry, a Hyderabad-based space exploration start-up will launch the country’s first privately built and designed rocket, Vikram-S, between November 12 and 16.
Announcing this on Tuesday, Skyroot Aerospace CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana said that “ a launch window between November 12 and 16 has been notified by authorities even as the final date for the operation will be confirmed based on weather conditions”.
Skyroot Aerospace’s maiden mission, which has been named ‘Prarambh’, will carry three customer payloads and will be launched from Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Satish Dhawan Space Centre spaceport at Sriharikota.
The first space mission for Skyroot was unveiled by ISRO chairman Dr S Somanath in Bengaluru on November 7. This followed the clearance for technical launch received from IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre), the single window nodal agency for promoting and regulating space-tech players.
The mission will propel Skyroot Aerospace as the first privately-run space exploration company to launch a rocket into orbit and is expected to boost the sector which was opened up in 2020. “The Vikram-S rocket is a single-stage sub-orbital launch vehicle which would carry three customer payloads and help test and validate the majority of the technologies in the Vikram series of space launch vehicles,” Skyroot Aerospace Chief Operating Office Naga Bharath Daka said.
Skyroot’s launch vehicles are named ‘Vikram’ as a tribute to the founder of the Indian space programme and renowned scientist Vikram Sarabhai. Speaking to TNIE, the company’s business development lead Sireesh Pallikonda said that work on Vikram-S began in 2018 and it took four years to design, develop, manufacture , test and now launch the vehicle which is based on a “solid propellant technology”. Built using an all-carbon fibre structure, the Vikram series rockets are capable of carrying up to 800 kg payloads to the Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
Skyroot has successfully built and tested India’s first privately developed cryogenic, hypergolic-liquid, and solid fuel-based rocket engines. The research and development and production activities extensively use advanced composite and 3D-printing technologies.